Taking Pride in RPGs, Part 3: In the Middle, Outside, or In Between
For part 3 of our Pride Month feature here at RPGaymer, we’re looking at the folks in the middle, on the outside, and in between. Even in queer spaces, there can be a lot of hang-ups over being one thing or the other, all or nothing, with those at the edges being ignored or erased. It’s time for some recognition. Ace and aro, bi and pan, as much or as little as one can love, it’s all still important. Comments and additional recommendations are, as always, appreciated. But first, an appropriate warning label.
~~Asexuality~~
One would think that asexuality wouldn’t be difficult to pin down in the context of video games, but nothing is ever so easy. In part, this is because its own definition is difficult to pin down, beyond a simple ‘not interested in stuff,’ which isn’t that simple at all, either. It can mean ‘not interested’ in the context of orientation, i.e. not strongly attracted to anyone. It can mean ‘not interested’ in terms of physical motivation, i.e. little to no resting sexual urges. It can even mean ‘not interested’ in terms of romantic emotional attachment. Some only feel sexual attraction or libido intermittently (gray ace) or with only a specific partner (demi). Others are content to leave that to other people and live their lives as they would prefer (aromantic, aro-ace). Asexuality is more multi-faceted than the colors of its official flag, in truth.
We can imagine it as sliders on the character generator of life, with three in particular set low. Any one of these might let a character be categorized as ace, and more often a combination of all three to varying degrees, but getting that sort of characterization across in the medium of games is hard, as most simply are not written well enough to make a call either way, and the base assumption is for a character to be allosexual (i.e., capable and willing in all three areas, even if not shown).
Thankfully, in a few cases the developers themselves were willing to identify a character as asexual (whether demi, gray ace, or aro-ace), and in others, the characters are well enough developed for us to make a case for them. Here’s what we’ve got.
~~Ace and Proud~~
Parvati (The Outer Worlds)
GaijinMonogatari
In the system-spanning science fiction adventure, The Outer Worlds, Parvati Holcomb is one of the first companions the player can recruit. She’s a fine mechanic, perhaps too interested in innovating and refitting to please the management, and is more than happy to take a cabin in the player’s accidentally inherited spaceship. One thing that she is not, however, is a romantic option for the player. In fact, it’s hard to say she has much interest in anything beyond mechanical engineering. She’s the first to admit that she’s never been able to make a relationship work, even though she’s tried several times, because nothing ever seems to click. Machines are easy; people are hard. And really, she’s just not that interested.
The engineering ace
And then she meets Junlei, captain and chief engineer of the Groundbreaker, the system’s independently operated space station. Parvati is interested in learning how to do maintenance and repairs on spaceships, and Junlei is the lady to ask. On the other end, Junlei has a type, and Parvati apparently fits it to a tee. What follows is a series of adorably uncomfortable messages, conversations, and story bites as Parvati tries to figure out how her own feelings work and Junlei attempts to flirt in spite of some major emotional baggage.
Through it all, a major point is that Parvati remains asexual and uncomfortable with even the concept of certain things, but at the same time, her intellectual connection to the other engineer is shifting to romantic at warp speed. The final trajectory of their relationship is unknown, though they’re definitely dating before the end of the game.
Mirabelle (In Stars And Time)
GaijinMonogatari
Mirabelle is in the interesting narrative position of being the Chosen One, the true hero of the story of In Stars And Time, and yet not the protagonist of the game. As the story begins at the end of an already epic journey, this means main character Siffrin and the player still have a lot to learn about her. Any time the party is in the village, on one of the game’s many temporal resets, Mirabelle can be seen sitting on a bench doing paperwork. The exact nature of that paperwork, she’s not ready to talk about, but with experience and insight borne of living too many times through a single day, Siffrin can get the truth out of her.
Matchmaking services. Mirabelle, Chosen Hero and consummate girly-girl in a poofy dress and huge hair ribbon, is methodically looking through dating profiles like she’s prepping for a final exam, and with about as much enthusiasm. This isn’t because she actually wants to be in a relationship, but rather because she feels obliged to. As a Housemaiden of Change and an actual Hero of the Land, there is a social expectation that she should celebrate and represent all aspects and stages of life, even if she would rather be celibate. In a somewhat ironic twist, although the land of Vaugarde is exuberant in its acceptance of all things LGBTQ, some people still have trouble accepting asexuality as a thing, and even Mirabelle has trouble putting her feelings into words. With the support and counsel of her friends, she comes to grips with being aro-ace, and she bonds with Siffrin over their varied flavors of asexuality as ‘feelings buddies’.
~~Bisexuality and Pansexuality~~
Like many letters in the LGBTQ+ spectrum, nuance is required with these. Depending on the interpretation, these two could be identical, while for others there are important distinctions. For the sake of argument and presentation here, bisexuality retains an inherent sense of polarity, where a character has a definite tendency towards one gender preference, but also possesses feelings of attraction for the other. These feelings do not need to be equally strong, and it is normal for one pole to be stronger than the other, but they remain in mind and in heart.
Pansexuality, on the other hand, precludes the concept of polarity by using the prefix for ‘everything’. No limitations, no broad preferences, simply an attraction to whatever.
Either way, these are both easy to replicate in a game and also difficult to make feel genuine, due to the mere existence of playersexuality as a concept. If a character is attracted to the player’s avatar regardless of who they are, this isn’t the best example to use. Thankfully, there are examples out there whose backstory or fuller presentation in the game gives us a better understanding of their motivations and feelings.
Yuri (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Strawberry Eggs
Yuri Leclerc is the leader of the Ashen Wolves, the unofficial fourth house found in the Cindered Shadows DLC in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Yuri is a shady character, leading a criminal outfit and dealing in thievery, confidence schemes, and illicit markets. He has even earned the title of “The Savage Mockingbird.” He’s something of a Robin Hood-like figure, though, as he uses the money from his dealings to help those in the Abyss, an underground area beneath Garreg Mach Monastery where those shunned by the people of Fódlan can seek refuge, and even builds orphanages and almshouses in his unpaired ending. He’s also a gorgeous, effeminate man who knows it and uses his charms on both women and men.
The only man Yuri can explicitly marry is male Byleth, with the rest of his married endings being with women, so he almost fits into the playersexual camp. However, there is evidence in his support conversations both in Three Houses and in the musou spin-off Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes that he is bisexual beyond Byleth. Nobles apparently fought over him to win his affection, and it’s implied they weren’t just women. There’s a darker side to this, as he spent his childhood licking the boots, and possibly more, of these nobles to get by. He is eventually adopted by Count Rowe, but he also implies that the nobleman didn’t adopt him out of kindness. On a lighter note, in Three Hopes, Sylvain initially mistakes Yuri for a woman and flirts with him. Yuri flirts back in their supports and entertains the idea of going on a date with him. The usually straight Sylvain even says at the end of their supports that he’s “kinda into” Yuri’s flirtations. It would be nice if Yuri had more romantic paired endings with men, but we see enough of this side of him to know he belongs in this feature.
~~Polyamory~~
Intersecting all this is polyamory, the mental or emotional capacity to hold romantic feelings of attraction to two or more people. This is something that can be learned or developed, but very often it’s a case of you can or you can’t. It can be straight or gay, bi or pan or even ace, in the solely romantic sense. Human nature being what it is, the most common denominator is ‘complicated.’ This often leads to problems from people who don’t get it, or between people who do get it but understand it differently, or else don’t want to get it because of societal ick. But in the world of video games, all things are possible, including expanded broadness of love. The downside is that it’s hard to separate characters who are truly representative of polyamory and its possibilities from those who are simply playersexual, much less the protagonists of games with blatant harem themes. There really should be more items to mention in here, but it’s a tricky thing to get right and a trickier thing to make work. We might see implications of romantic potential here and there, but few games follow through on it without the playersexual caveat.
Asellus (SaGa Frontier)
GaijinMonogatari
In the broadly imagined many-worlds setting of SaGa Frontier, Asellus sits in an interesting position across realms, races, and class. In the pre-story, she suffered an accident when an ornately Gothic carriage hit her in the street, and when she wakes up a decade later, she finds that the only reason she survived was that the carriage’s owner was feeling magnanimous. Unfortunately, that owner was Orlouge, the Charm Lord of Fascinataru and master of the Mystic race. He’s basically the sexy vampire king, and Asellus is his choice of heir—as soon as her pesky humanity is purged and she becomes fully a vampire-type Mystic herself.
This is a thing which the player can affect directly over the course of her game scenario, and much reflects on her interactions with other characters. In the original Japanese, for example, her speech patterns shift to more masculine when speaking with women or more feminine when speaking with men. It’s also reflected in her plurality of love interests, with the lovably mortal Gina and the eternally beautiful White Rose. Much of the commentary on Asellus focuses on how she is one of the earliest openly lesbian heroines in mainstream JRPGs—or possibly bisexual, if you put more weight on her Purely Human ending, but her personal narrative leans heavily on her two girlfriends. White Rose’s existence helps push things forward at the start, and the three possible endings partially hinge on how things go with Gina.
So of her three endings, Asellus can be human and vaguely bisexual (okay ending), a dominatrix vampire lesbian queen with a sleeping harem of hundreds (evil ending), or have the best of both worlds as a trans-species, pansexual, socially genderfluid, lady of love with an open polycule of human and Mystic relationships (the best ending). In many ways, she is the epitome of Pride, and perhaps the best person to end this year’s feature with.
We hope you have enjoyed this ongoing feature! Let us know what you think of the games mentioned in the comments and please join our community and tell us what you’re currently playing on Discord.
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